Why Be Jewish?

Kol Nidre 5787

According to the Talmud, when a person comes before the Beit Din, the rabbinical court, seeking to convert to Judaism, the rabbis ask this question: “What did you see that made you want to convert? Don’t you know that right now, Jews are anguished, suppressed, despised, and harassed, and hardships are frequently visited upon them?” (Yev. 47a). In other words, “Are you serious?! Why would you want to be Jewish if you don’t have to be?!” The passage continues, “If the prospective convert responds, ‘I know, and I am not worthy,’ they convert him immediately.”  That is, if a person can see how hard it is to be a Jew, and can still believe that being Jewish is a precious gift he doesn’t even deserve, then he has what it takes to be a Jew.

          This text may be 1500 years old, but the question is still painfully relevant. Many rabbis, including me, still ask this question of every person who seeks to convert. Are you sure you want to be Jewish, given how hard it is to be a Jew in this world? And many converts answer with a version of the talmudic response: “I know, but it’s worth it.” There’s a reason those who have converted to Judaism are often our most committed and enthusiastic members. But it’s a question that isn’t just for converts. As many have pointed out, today we are all Jews-by-Choice. Any of us can choose to identify as Jewish or not, or to be part of a Jewish community, or not, or engage in Jewish activities, or not. All of us have made the choice to be here tonight – well, except those of you who’ve been forced by your parents. Why are we here? We might not even know! Is it because God said we should come to shul on Yom Kippur? Is it because we come every year? Is it because we remember going to synagogue as a child and want to connect to that memory? Is it because we long for the atonement and spiritual uplift this day can bring? Is it because we feel the need to be with our people? Why be Jewish today, or, for that matter, any day?

          The first answer that comes to mind is both the most obvious and the least satisfying. I am Jewish because at least one of my parents is Jewish. I didn’t choose it, I inherited it, along with my blue eyes and brown hair. But there have been plenty of Jews throughout history who have denied this answer any weight at all. They converted to another religion because of conviction or convenience or survival, or they simply assimilated, hiding or ignoring their heritage in pursuit of becoming just another citizen of whichever country they lived in. With plenty of reasons to abandon Judaism, just having a Jewish parent is usually not enough to sustain a robust Jewish identity or practice.

          Another common answer, one you might have grown up with, comes from the philosopher and Holocaust survivor Emil Fackenheim, who declared that in addition to the 613 mitzvot of the Torah, there is now a 614th commandment: do not give Hitler a posthumous victory. He argued that after the Holocaust, Jews have an obligation to remain Jewish simply to ensure that the Jewish People survives. This reason for remaining Jewish appeals to some of us. We might have had relatives who were killed and feel an obligation to honor them by carrying on Jewish tradition. Or we might just be obstinate, following in the footsteps of our stiff-necked ancestors in the Torah, so when we’re told that being Jewish is unacceptable or undesirable, we defiantly embrace our Judaism even more tightly. But to some of us, this answer isn’t satisfying or even palatable. As Rabbi Marc Gellman writes, “I despise that idea. I am Jewish because my mother is Jewish, and, more importantly, because I believe Judaism is loving, just, joyous, hopeful and true. I am not Jewish, and I did not teach my children or my students to be Jewish, just to spite Hitler.”^[1] Or as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks puts it, “That is giving too much to Hitler and too little to God.”

          Rabbi Gellman gives us another reason for remaining Jewish, that Judaism is “loving, just, joyous, hopeful, and true.” Another way to put it is: we are Jewish because Judaism is great! Judaism is full of wonderful stories, profound teachings, joyful holidays, and meaningful lifecycle rituals. We have thousands of years’ worth of wisdom for how to live a good life. And though Judaism has evolved through the centuries, its essential ideas, our fundamental values, remain both timeless and timely. Here are just a few:

Number 1. God is Echad – One. Rabbi Harold Schulweis writes, “If I had to pick one word that would sum up the thrust and yearning of Jewish faith, it would be ‘echad.’ Echad is the singular attribute ascribed to God. It does not say “Hear O Israel the Lord our God is omnipotent,” or “the Lord our God is omniscient,” or “the Lord our God is eternal.” It says [Adonai] our God is ‘echad’ -- is one. ....Echad, but not one in the mathematical sense, one as opposed to two or as opposed to three, or as opposed to twenty. To believe in Echad is to understand God as the Great Connection, the Nexus, the Binding, that links me and you within the great chain of being” (“Echad,” Rosh Hashanah 1997). Jews can have radically different ideas about Who or What God is, but we all agree that if there is a God, God is One. To believe this is to see our fractured world and to know that, despite what it looks like on the surface, there is a deeper Unity that binds us all together.

Number 2. All human beings are created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. No one really knows exactly what it means to be created b’tzelem Elohim. Certainly it can’t be interpreted literally, since God has no physical form. Some have suggested that it refers to human consciousness, others that it refers to our intellect. It could be that what makes us like God is that we have free will or that we have the ability to do good. Rabbi Irving Greenberg argues that being b’tzelem Elohim really means that we are loved by God. He writes, “...God loves every human being… Such a boundless love confers the dignity of infinite value and equality on all human beings and evokes their uniqueness, even if they live in a society that denies their dignity or their humanity. In God’s eyes, humans are always in this state of dignity.”^[2] Imagine what the world would look like if we all internalized the belief that every single person is of infinite value and we managed to treat them as such.

Number 3. Our most important job in this world is to take care of the most vulnerable, and in particular, the strangers, among us. Tomorrow morning, we’ll read the searing words of the prophet Isaiah:

“Is such the fast I desire,

A day for people to starve their bodies?

Is it bowing the head like a bulrush

And lying in sackcloth and ashes?

… No, this is the fast I desire:

To unlock fetters of wickedness,

And untie the cords of the yoke

To let the oppressed go free;

To break off every yoke.

It is to share your bread with the hungry,

And to take the wretched poor into your home;

When you see the naked, to clothe them,

And not to ignore your own kin” (Isa. 58:5-7).

On the holiest day of the year, the day we spend fasting and praying and ignoring the business of the world, we remind ourselves that nothing we do in this sanctuary matters a bit if it doesn’t affect how we behave outside this building. In Judaism, there is no spirituality without morality, no drawing close to God without drawing close to people, particularly people in need.

And number 4. “It’s not good for human beings to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). In the book of Genesis, this is what God says to Adam before creating Eve. It’s not good for human beings to be alone, and it is nearly impossible to be Jewish in solitude. According to Jewish law, without a minyan, a quorum of Jewish adults, there can be no weddings, no funerals, and no B’nei Mitzvah. We need a minyan in order to read from the Torah and to say Kaddish for loved ones. And even if we don’t need a full minyan for them, most of our rituals are best done with others. Building a sukkah by yourself is tricky, and potentially dangerous, like assembling an Ikea bookshelf without any help. Having a Passover seder by yourself is also tricky – you have to ask and answer all those questions, and how would you hide the afikoman from yourself? You could dress up for Purim and read the Megillah to yourself, but it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. Almost every Jewish ritual is more interesting, more alive, when it is done with others.

But being Jewish means not just associating with other Jews; it also means being responsible for them. Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh – all Jews are guarantors for one another (BT Shev. 39a). When a Jew or Jewish community is in trouble, it is up to all of us to take care of them. This is why we helped Jews escape from the Soviet Union and Ethiopia. It’s why we care about what happens in Israel even though we don’t have a vote there. It’s why when a well-known Jewish person does something heinous, we all feel ashamed, and when a well-known Jewish person does something admirable, we all kvell.

There is much to love about Judaism: our ideas and ideals, our history and community, our humor and, of course, our food. But is all this enough to outweigh the allure of secular culture, not to mention the indignities and dangers of being Jewish today?

Naturally, we are not the first generation to ask this question. The year is 1913, and a twenty-six-year old German philosophy scholar named Franz Rosenzweig decides to convert to Christianity. He has friends who have already done so, and so after much discussion with them, Rosenzweig is convinced that shedding his Jewish identity and embracing Christianity is the only way to resolve his theological questions and live a coherent religious life. Just before his baptism, Rosenzweig decides to attend Yom Kippur services one more time and finds his way to a small Orthodox shul in Berlin. Rosenzweig leaves the synagogue transformed. He has realized that he doesn’t need to convert to Christianity after all. Instead, he recommits himself to Judaism, and goes on to write The Star of Redemption, one of the greatest works of Jewish philosophy ever written.

Rosenzweig never reveals exactly what happened to him on that fateful Yom Kippur. Perhaps it was hearing the haunting melody of Kol Nidre, or the experience of standing, fist clenched, tapping his chest for each sin alongside his fellow Jews. More likely, it was the rabbi’s brilliant sermon that changed his mind. But whatever happened, something during that holy day called him home.

I think the something that called to Rosenzweig that day is covenant, the same covenant that calls to each of us today. When the shofar is sounded at the end of Yom Kippur, we are all standing at Sinai once again, hearing the blast of the shofar that summoned the Israelites to receive the Torah and enter into a covenant with God. We remember that we are not just a social club, not just a community, not even just a family or tribe. We are mamlechet kohanim v’goy kadosh, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, and like the Blues Brothers, we are on a mission from God. The mission has been described in various ways, but I think the prophet Isaiah expresses it best. He declares, “I the Eternal, in My grace, have summoned you, and I have grasped you by the hand.  I created you and appointed you a covenant people, a light of nations— opening eyes deprived of light, rescuing prisoners from confinement, from the dungeon those who sit in darkness” (Isa. 42:6-7). The Jewish People has been given the task of being an or lagoyim, a light unto the nations. In every generation, we are meant to live out our understanding of the covenant, to live in such a way that brings more light into the world. It is a task without an end, at least until the Messiah comes.

We are, of course, not the only people who can bring light to the world. Tikkun olam, repairing the world, requires that every human being do their part. But Judaism is the particular way we fulfill our mission; it is the story that we are part of, if we choose to be. The Baal Shem Tov, founder of chasidism in the 18th century, believed that the Jewish People was a living Torah scroll, and each Jew is one of its letters. Just as a Torah scroll with a missing letter is considered defective and not fit for use, so is the Jewish story incomplete without each Jew fulfilling their role. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes, “[T]he key to understanding our ancestors’ decision to remain Jewish even in times of great trial and tribulation [is that] I suspect they knew that they were letters in this story, a story of great risk and courage. Their ancestors had taken the risk of pledging themselves to a covenant with God and thus undertaking a very special role in history…. At the heart of the covenant is the idea of emunah, which means faithfulness or loyalty. And Jews felt a loyalty to generations past and generations yet unborn to continue the narrative.... I am a Jew because, knowing the story of my people, I hear their call to write the next chapter.”^[3] 

Ours is a beautiful story. It is a story of faithfulness, courage, love, and an indestructible hope, even on the darkest of days. I pray that the Jewish story continues to speak to all of us, to bring us comfort and strength and pride and purpose, and that it inspires us to heed its call – to write the next chapter in the story of our people’s covenant with the Living God.

^[1] https://www.newsweek.com/spiritual-state-inhumanity-jews-119327

^[2] The Triumph of Life, Chapter 2.

^[3] Radical Then, Radical Now, pg. 39.